Read Online Schism by Britt Holewinski - Free Book Online Page A

You two are my family, and you always will be. The only good thing that goddamned virus ever did was bring us together.”
    Morgan’s face broke into quiet laughter. “You should curse more. It suits you.”
    “Maybe I will,” she replied, smiling. “But seriously, you’ll be okay. And your baby will be okay. I promise.”
    “But where else can we go?”
    “I don’t know, but I’ll talk to Maria tomorrow. Maybe she has some ideas.”
    “What about Jim and Ben?”
    Andy shrugged. “They’ll do whatever’s best for them, I guess.”
    “Will you ask them to come with us?”
    “You want me to?”
    Morgan hesitated a moment before nodding. “It’s nice having other people around to talk to. Not that you and my brother aren’t enough, but you know what I mean.”
    Andy smiled faintly. “Yeah, I do.”
    “So you’ll ask them, then?”
    “Sure, but why don’t you ask them?”
    “I don’t want them to think I’m asking for help because I’m pregnant and I need them to take care of me.”
    “But they don’t know you’re pregnant. You don’t even know for sure.”
    “I’m pretty sure.” Morgan reached beneath her bed and retrieved a small plastic stick. A pregnancy test. “I got it from the drugstore yesterday. It’s positive.”
    Andy frowned at the stick. “Ok, I’ll ask them. But if they don’t come, you’ll still have Charlie and me, okay? No matter what.”
    Morgan grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I know. Thank God for both of you.”

Chapter VII
    A ndy didn’t sleep much that night.
    Things had been easier in Bermuda. There was never any apprehension about the future. It just came, day by day, and they’d survived—they’d adapted.
    But this was different. Morgan was right. There was no ocean to fish and no garden to grow; only dry, desert soil and heat. She wondered if they would’ve been better off staying back east in some beach town in North Carolina or Virginia. But it was too late to go back. They had been seduced by the offer of help from Jim and Ben when they had never needed help before. Now that they had accepted it, they seemed more off-track than ever.
    Worries consumed her all night, and by five in the morning, she’d had enough. She needed to clear her head. In the darkness of her room, she fished around for her clothes and shoes. After tiptoeing out of the house, she wandered toward Maria’s home.
    Upon reaching their home, she was surprised to see Maria standing at the end of the driveway. More surprising was the presence of a mid-sized trailer truck with its engine running. There were two young men inside and Maria was speaking in Spanish to someone in the passenger’s seat. When the truck drove off moments later, she still hadn’t noticed Andy.
    “Maria?”
    She whirled around, startled. “Andy! God, you scared me! What are you doing here?”
    “Sorry. I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk and just kinda ended up here.” After an awkward pause, she added, “Mind if I ask what that was about? The truck, I mean.”
    “I’m just trying to help out some friends from Juarez. Things are still very bad there.”
    “It seems like things are bad everywhere.”
    “True. It’s either living in the middle of nowhere, like here, or in the middle of chaos with all the other survivors.”
    “So you chose the middle of nowhere?”
    Maria’s jaw hardened. “We had no choice. Julio and Carmen were so young when everything happened, and they depended entirely on me. I became their mother. When Carmen was shot, I had to make a choice.”
    “That’s a lot to ask of a thirteen-year-old.”
    Her eyes narrowed as she gazed off toward the horizon. “They’re my brother and sister. I’d do anything for them. Even come to a dead town like this. I don’t want to be here, but there were no other options. And I have friends depending on me.”
    “Will you ever leave here?”
    “Someday, if things get better in Juarez. But I’ve decided that if things aren’t